The story of the 2017/18 crop cycle in the U.S. and the world is being written. However, only the first few chapters have emerged so far, and there will no doubt be many more to follow before the story is complete. Among those that stand out to date are the following:

Unless the crops presently being seeded in South America falter badly due to adverse weather conditions, 2017/18 will be the fifth consecutive year of very large world production of major row crops. The small U.S. wheat crop and the drought-damaged Australian crop have been offset by good wheat production elsewhere, most notably in Russia. We are not sure when a similar string of years with huge world crops last occurred (if ever), but it is certainly unique in modern agric...